Man Charged With Killing 6 In Kalamazoo Interrupts Survivor's Testimony
KALAMAZOO (WWJ/AP) - A judge stopped a hearing after a Michigan man accused of killing six people interrupted the testimony of one of the two people who survived the shooting rampage.
Jason Dalton raised his voice in court Friday and talked about people with "black bags." Judge Christopher Haenicke called a recess and deputies removed Dalton from the room.
Haenicke must decide if there's probable cause to send Dalton to trial on charges of murder and attempted murder.
Prosecutors say Dalton gunned down six people and wounded two others in the Kalamazoo area over several hours on Feb. 20. Survivor Tiana Carruthers was testifying at the time of Dalton's outburst, and she began sobbing.
Police have quoted Dalton as saying a "devil figure" on Uber's app was controlling him during the shootings. He was driving for Uber that night.
Documents released in March by the Kalamazoo Department of Public Safety and Kalamazoo County sheriff's office contained a police report in which Dalton told investigators he was being controlled by the ride-hailing app through his cellphone.
Dalton told authorities after his arrest that when you "plug into" the Uber app, "you can actually feel the presence on you." He said the difference between the night of the shootings and others was that an icon on the Uber app that is normally red "had changed to black."
Police wrote in the report that Dalton also described how the Uber app on his cellphone took him over the day of the shootings. Dalton also said that at one point he went to his home, put several guns into a bag and put them in his vehicle.
In the report he describes the shootings at each of the three locations.
The first victim, 25-year-old Carruthers, was asked if she had called Uber for a ride before she was shot multiple times outside an apartment complex. Carruthers survived the shooting.
Later, Richard Smith and his 17-year-old son, Tyler, were shot and killed while looking at vehicles at a car dealership. Dalton said he told them, "hello," before they were shot.
When Dalton ended up outside a Cracker Barrel restaurant, he shot 62-year-old Mary Lou Nye after she declined his request for a dollar, according to a state police report. Dalton told detectives that he had asked the woman "if she could spare a dollar to make America great again." Dalton said he was going to leave after shooting Nye, but he heard other people screaming, so he turned his gun on them.
Nye, her 60-year-old sister Mary Jo Nue, 74-year-old Dorothy Brown and 68-year-old Barbara Hawthorne were killed. A fifth person — 14-year-old Abigail Kopf — was wounded.
Dalton said "he came back to reality" when police arrested him early the next morning, according to the report.
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